1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer network traffic analysis. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for monitoring instant messaging with visual identification.
2. Description of the Related Art
Children often communicate with their friends and family members using instant messaging (IM) software, such as YAHOO Instant Messenger, MSN LIVE MESSENGER, America Online (AOL) Instant Messenger, and the like. There are concerns, however, that children can be lured into messaging with child predators. Hence, parental control applications exist that provide parents or guardians with a list of IM “buddies” with which a child communicates, as well as their conversation logs. However, such parental control products do not provide any type of visual identification of each buddy or other user with which a child communicates. As such, a child predator or other potentially dangerous individual may masquerade under a seemingly innocuous buddy or user name, going unnoticed by the parent or guardian receiving reports from the parental control product. For example, a child can have a buddy named “happy_girl” and a parent or guardian will not know whether “happy_girl” is actually a young girl or a child predator pretending to be a young girl.
Accordingly, there exists a need in the art for a method and apparatus for visually identifying buddies or users with which a child communicates using IM software.